Writing

I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about writing, in general, because writing about craft isn’t something that I’m actually at all good at. Instead, this will be a short entry about why writing appeals to me and some of my projects that I’ve written. It will also have some vague ideas about how I completed some of those projects.

I’m drawn to creating things. That’s the same motivation that has pulled me into programming. I like to craft intricate little toys and then set them up and watch them run. Docker fulfills this need in me in the same way that writing does. I can set up carefully crafted little toys and watch them work. I’m a classic world builder, though I don’t particularly like to describe my worlds. I want the side effects to tell you about what happens.

I’ve written several novel length works, for my personal entertainment, in the last five years. I see many posts online about how one writes a novel. There are a lot of ways that people suggest, systems, programs, plans. For me the only real way to produce anything of any length is to be consistent. You don’t have to write much, but you have to keep yourself engaged in the process of it. For me that means writing every day, but I don’t think this it he only way one could work.

On days when I don’t feel like writing, I always make an attempt to take notes. A few jotted ideas about where a story is going or what they main character might thing about something tends to keep me engaged in a story.

That’s one of the tricks, for me. If you aren’t engaged writing something it will usually show when someone tries to read it. If it’s a slog to write it might be a slog to read.

Just like photography, writing is an art that benefits from process. I like to imagine that I’m not predictable, but my photography style and my writing style aren’t all that different. When it comes to both I like to explore. I rarely use full outlines, and when I do outline at all it’s usually just to give me an idea of what’s going to happen in the next chapter of a story. I have an explorative style. In photography this means that I often have to throw away photographs, sometimes many of them. This is true for writing as well, being willing to rewrite or remove parts of a story I’ve written is essential.

This is just a little introductory post, I’ll come back with discussions about specific projects and goals, and how I accomplish them, in a later post.